Dell Server Power Supply Breakout board

BradsXmasLights

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This may be of interest to people who can get old Dell PowerEdge Server supplies for free/cheap:
http://www.gekkoscience.com/products/D750_supply_breakout_board.html

At $42.50 per board (+ power supply itself) it's not exactly cheap, however it's going to be quite efficient and clean high current 12V power. The weird Dell PSU connector itself is actually about $10 alone too.

Other features:
[SIZE=medium]+ 5V and 3.3V outputs for driving auxiliary controllers.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]+ The current share pin to tie together if you wish to use more than one power supply at a time.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]+ Current sense pin, to measure current consumption.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]+ External fan speed controller.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]+ External on for turning more than one supply on at the flip of a single switch.
+ Power good signal to indicate whether the supply is functioning properly.[/SIZE]



...And yes, these can be joined in parallel together to increase output power. The other cheap option is no fancy management and just solder directly to the PSU's voltage pins.
 

elnino

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I attempted to use an Intel server power supply and I don't know what it was but it just refused to power my devices properly at all. Even though it was rated at some 70A @ 12v, my lights would flicker and generally stuff up with it. Yet they worked fine with a crappy old HP Pc power supply. Not saying that is the case with the Dell but what i thought was an awesome freebee turned out to be useless.
 

BradsXmasLights

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Just tested one of the Dell power supplies out and it works fine - although the fan is super loud with any fan speed resistance in place.


Gekkoscience's boards have also dropped in price now - only US$31 with the Current Sensing option ($28 without).


Will be ordering some to test out.
 

fasteddy

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elnino said:
I attempted to use an Intel server power supply and I don't know what it was but it just refused to power my devices properly at all. Even though it was rated at some 70A @ 12v, my lights would flicker and generally stuff up with it. Yet they worked fine with a crappy old HP Pc power supply. Not saying that is the case with the Dell but what i thought was an awesome freebee turned out to be useless.

A computer power supply is not designed to have large power fluctuations from 0% to 100% load in milliseconds, also some power supplies need to have both the 5v and the 12v rail taking current. Using a power supply designed for a computer will work most times but its not what they were designed for and can be a bit of a hit and miss to what will work and what wont.
 

BradsXmasLights

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Works fine so far :) Tried it with both pixel nodes & strip and it runs fine.. I can't see it being any worse than these $20 Chinese jobs.

930watt 12V Power Supply Test


Whilst I agree PSU's that have equal wattage for 12V & 5V rails may freakout if one rail is not loaded - these Dell Server supplies are primarily 12V - in this case 77.5A, and a small 6A 3.3A rail for standby circuits. No 5V output at all.
 

AussiePhil

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Fasteddy said:
A computer power supply is not designed to have large power fluctuations from 0% to 100% load in milliseconds, also some power supplies need to have both the 5v and the 12v rail taking current. Using a power supply designed for a computer will work most times but its not what they were designed for and can be a bit of a hit and miss to what will work and what wont.


Server power supplies are designed to handle at least 30-40% sub-milliseconds variations caused from processors going from 0 to 100% util in single clock cycles.
Server supplies are also primary 12V rails... 5V rails are non existent in most servers.
 

BradsXmasLights

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Dell PSU Pin info...


Credit to the RC (Remote Control) forums where I found these :)
 

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battle79

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I have 2x 400W HP ones very similar that I just soldered the appropriate pads as per instructions I found online and they work fantastic. Could actually load them to ~375W if I really wanted as they didn't get hot under testing. Did get noisy mind you once I got over 300W.

Regards,
Rowan
 
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